Exciting times here at Moorhayes Farm. Yesterday morning we took delivery of our brand new sparkling Milking Robots. Don’t you just love new things?

We’ve been preparing for their arrival for a while now, demolishing buildings and clearing out old in preparation for new. I have to say it’s been great fun, such a buzz of activity, and we really are blessed to have such great workmen in and around our local area, always the professionals.

The upheaval is going to be so worth it though. Cows that are looked after properly show their appreciation by rewarding the farmer with great milk, that in turn makes great cheese. And making great cheese is our business. Robotic parlours help us in looking after our herd, if our ladies think they are lucky now they’ll be in seventh heaven by the time the robots are installed and here’s why;

Our ladies will be able to choose when to milk themselves. At the moment we milk twice a day, in the near future if a cow is feeling full and uncomfortable she will be able to stroll on up and be relieved as and when she chooses rather than have to wait.

Less time standing in queues. Anybody remember what Argos was like in the 90’s? Let me remind you, it was dreadful, queue after queue, now they have all sorts of technology to make the shopping experience a more comfortable one, not to mention speedy. And that is what we are doing for our ladies. At the moment the cows are brought in for milking, they queue to be milked and then queue again ready to be sent back out to grass. By eliminating the queues we are also drastically reducing any issues with foot health.

On the subject of queuing, while a cow is queuing she has no access to food, and cows are hungry animals who expend a lot of energy so are happier when they can eat. When the robots are in situ the cow will have access to food while milking and she’ll not be queuing for hours a day increasing her access to food in the field.

The robots are extremely smart at monitoring cows health. It can take 2/4 days for any symptoms of ill health such as mastitis to become apparent when milking manually. The robots will be able to detect any symptoms and the feedback will be immediate allowing us to be proactive in keeping our heard healthy.